Should critique requests be allowed on the site?

Question

Saw this question: https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/2566/web-application-u-i-critique

Is this the kind of question that we should have on the site?

Disregarding the fact that it is fairly subjective, I see it as an issue for a couple of other reasons. First of all, critiques aren't asking a specific question, which means that it is too broad to get a specific answer (even a subjective answer). Second, it is very "local" - it only really pertains to the user and their site; I don't think it's likely that someone else will stumble across that question and gain anything by reading its answers. Finally, this is akin to someone asking you to do work for them for free. As UI experts, shouldn't we get paid for doing critiques? :)

Answer 1

Ha! I was just coming here to ask this EXACT question. I'm surprised this did not show up as the top off-topic question in the original proposal… but it was missed.

I would strongly suggest that you add this to the FAQ as being off topic:

• Critique my design: What do you think? How can it be improved?

Absent a very specific question about their design, I would close these questions as off topic.

But I would further caution NOT to create an overly draconian moratorium against any discussions about specific designs. Users could, for example, have a very specific design question using their design as an illustrative example. That would be okay if the question is very specific. But a general "critique my design" request is not.

I would suggest fleshing this out with more feedback here, then amending the FAQ, and closing that question (and any future questions along those lines) with a clear explanation as to why they are considered outside the scope of this site.

Answer 2

Critique MY design is a little annoying, but I don't think its off topic.

Critique THIS design, like something google did or whatever is perfectly interesting.

Making the site better requires empathy for different points of view. Some people can't seem to grok that subjective questions are the MOST interesting to many of us.

Answer 3

I do think that if the question addresses specific aspects of the design and a snip of the screen shot is included, it does add much value, and it should be allowed.

If the "question" is limited to just a request for critique or feedback, it's of limited value, especially over the course of time as the URL(s) provided will likely have a different UI displayed when the question ages.

Regarding my first point, though, I do think it's worthwhile to actually encourage that type of discourse, especially containing embedded graphic examples. This type of question/answer with illustrations would be highly valuable to the community.

Answer 4

My snap judgment would be to say that questions that are phrased in a way that the discussion can any solutions can be applied by others confronting the same issues should be encouraged through the normal mechanisms (up voting mainly). For those questions that are too specific and non-applicable to the rest of the community, those questions should naturally be viewed less and receive less votes giving them the treatment they may very well deserve.

I agree with others as well who make the point that when diagrams, screen-shots, and other useful illustrations are included these questions have a particular degree of usefulness to the community regardless of how widely it applies to others since it helps promote deep and higher quality discussions. In these cases there is almost always something that others can take away from the discussion even if it isn't the main topic being discussed.

NOTE: In the past I thought the community wiki feature? that I've seen on StackOverflow was to be used as a way to pose more broad questions that promote discussion but do not necessarily elicit a single precise solution to a problem however it appears this may not be the original intent. The topic of discussion here however is about questions that are overly specific to a degree that they may not be very useful on a large scale to others in the community. Also community wiki posts are mainly used to hand over ownership of a question or other post to the community.